Homily for Corpus Christi Sunday Year A 2020
Deuteronomy 8:2-3,14-16; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-52
Introduction
Corpus Christi; the Latin name of today’s feast. What do you understand when you hear those words, Corpus Christi?
For some, Corpus Christi is a city in Texas; while for others, they hear "hocus pocus", a parody of Corpus Christi by those who poke fun at the Eucharist.
But for us Catholics, Corpus Christi means the Body of Christ. If last Sunday we celebrated the Trinity, reminding us of who God is, today's feast of Corpus Christi reminds us of how God saves us, using the Body of Christ.
In my homily today, I would like to reflect on three meanings of this word, “The Body of Christ”: the Body of Christ as the sacrifice, sacrament and communion.
Scripture and Theology
When we today hear about sacrifice, we have this image of a half-naked African or Amazonian man, killing a goat and dancing around it in a trance and offering it to the gods. That is perhaps why the Eucharist, the Body of Christ does not easily strike us as being a sacrifice.
And yet, just listen to the words of the Mass and hear how often the priest speaks of “sacrifice” and “victim”, “offering” and “oblation”, “giving” and “gifts.” For example, just after he has prepared the gifts of bread and wine, the priest says: “Pray brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours, may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father.” And what do you respond? “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise . . . .” Later after the consecration, after changing the gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, the priest once again says to God the Father, for example in the third Eucharistic Prayer “we offer you in thanksgiving, this holy and living sacrifice.”
A sacrifice is essentially a gift we give to God, to represent our devotion, our complete selves. But because there is really nothing of value that we can give to God, not the old sacrifices of sheep and goats, on the day before he died, Jesus generously gave his disciples a sacrifice that would be acceptable to God. He took bread and wine, gave thanks over them and then gave them to his disciples saying, “This is my body which will be given up for you; This is my blood which will be poured out for you.” He used bread and wine to show them what he was going to offer to the Father the next day, his natural flesh and blood. And then he said, “Do this in memory of me.” And the Church has never stopped doing so.
That is why every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are offering the sacrifice Jesus offered on the cross. In fact, in the words of the memorial acclamation we say as much, declaring that what we are doing at Mass is: “we proclaim your death O Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again.”
Like men and women in uniform, who give their lives in service to the nation, we too give to the Father, something of value, the sacrificed Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, together with our sufferings, praises and thanksgiving. And so, the first meaning of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, is that it is the Sacrifice of Christ, which saves us, which he gave us to offer with him to the Father.
But for this to be a meaningful sacrifice, it has to be the real thing, the real Body and Blood of Christ. That brings us to the second meaning of this word, Corpus Christi. Last year a survey claimed that many Catholics do not believe that the bread and wine after consecration are the Body and Blood of Christ; that they believe that they are merely signs and remain just bread and wine.
I think the survey may have confused two things: what Catholics believe and what Catholics understand. I think that many Catholics believe that the bread and wine after consecration, what they receive in communion, is really the Body and Blood of Christ. Now do they understand what that means? Can they explain exactly how what looks like bread and wine is no longer those things? Probably not! After all it took theologians many centuries to understand and explain this truth. But what has always been consistent is that we believe what Jesus himself said, that the bread and wine become his Body and Blood. Even Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, while he disagreed with the Church on many things, unlike his Protestant Brethren, taught that we must take Jesus at his word when he said: “this is my body, this is my blood.”
That is why just before communion, the priest holding up the host over the chalice says: "Behold the Lamb of God, Behold him who takes away the sins of the world, blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb." The priest reminds us that the host and wine we are about to consume are not only Jesus himself, but they are the lamb of sacrifice, offered for the sins of the world.
Christian Life
And now we come to the third meaning of the Eucharist, communion. By communion, I am not referring to the act of “receiving communion” but rather to what should happen to us after we offer the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, and after we consume them. You see the Body of Christ as sacrifice and sacrament is supposed to bring us into communion with God and with each other. That is what St. Paul was trying to impress upon the people of Corinth and us, in our second reading today.
In the first part of that reading he asked: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” In other words, he was telling us that if we want to participate in the life of Jesus Christ, we must do so primarily through offering and consuming his Body and Blood. Jesus was even more explicit in the gospel, telling his skeptical listeners: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. . . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” In other words, the Body of Christ is the source of communion with God, which we start here on earth and will enjoy in full on the other side.
But that communion has to start here among us the children of God, the other brothers and sisters of Christ. That is why in the second part of the reading, St. Paul goes on to say: “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” In other words, we come to the Eucharist with our different gifts and characteristics, old and young, Black and White, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, but through sharing in the one sacrifice of Christ, in his one Eucharistic Body, we all become one Body, one spirit in Christ, as we shall hear in the Eucharistic Prayer. But this unity is not uniformity, where everybody is the same, where we are colour blind or we blend our differences; it is a unity where all our differences are treasured and accepted. It is not the unity of a smoothie, but the unity of a fruit salad, not the unity of a soup, but the unity of a gumbo.
Some of you might be familiar with the 1987 movie, Babette's Feast. Babette, is a French woman works as a housekeeper for two Norwegian Spinsters, daughters of a Lutheran pastor. The sisters live modestly and are exemplary, but the church community left behind by their father is now filled with animosity and division. After working seventeen years, Babette wins the lottery; and now she can return home. But before she does so, she asks the sisters to allow her prepare for them and their church community, a lavish meal to celebrate what would have been their father's hundredth birthday. The meal is a great success; the food is delicious, the wine exquisite and the company enjoyable. But something even more beautiful happens; enemies forgive each other and broken friendships are restored. Babette's feast, like the Body of Christ unites them.
But even better, at the end of the story, all the hard work, all the sacrifice Babette put into preparing this meal is revealed. But most importantly, it is also revealed that to prepare this wonderful meal, this meal that brought back unity to the community, Babette had spent all the money she won from the lottery. Like Jesus whose sacrifice the Eucharist celebrates, she had sacrificed everything.
Conclusion
And so, when you come to receive communion later in the Mass consider what is happening very carefully. The priest or minister will say to you: "The Body of Christ." And then you will respond, "Amen." What are you agreeing to when say “Amen”? You are saying: “I do agree, that this is the Body of Christ.”
And this agreement commits you to do three things.
- First, you agree to believe that while the host you see and taste looks like bread, it is really the Body of Christ himself you are receiving.
- Second, you agree to believe that the host is also a sacrifice, a body sacrificed, blood poured forth, for your salvation.
- Third, you agree to commit yourself that after you receive that sacrament, the sacrificed Body of Christ, you want to enter into communion not only God, but also with your brothers and sisters here on earth.
Are you ready to commit yourself to the sacrament of the Body of Christ, the sacrifice of the Body of Christ and the communion of the Body of the Christ?
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